Libya Attack a Security Breakdown by Obama, Graham Says

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s
administration is responsible for security failures in Libya and
botched its response to a Sept. 11 attack that killed U.S.
Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Senator
Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the Senate Armed Services
Committee.

“I am totally convinced this is going to go down in
history as one of the most major breakdowns in national
security,” Graham, of South Carolina, said on “Fox News
Sunday.” He said it’s inconceivable that Obama was unaware of
growing security threats and attacks in the region.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s second-ranking
Democrat, defended the administration and cautioned against
jumping to conclusions before completion of a comprehensive
investigation of the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

“It’s always easier the day after to say how we should
have won the football game,” Durbin said on the Fox program.

Calling the consulate “a death trap,” Graham said the
U.S. should have closed it “long before Sept. 11 or heavily
enforced it, and I put that on the president of the United
States.” He criticized the Obama administration for not
directly attributing the attack to terrorists immediately
afterwards.

On the Fox program, Durbin cited a Washington Post column
indicating the CIA itself believed the attack may have been in
reaction to a video that many Muslims considered offensive and
that sparked demonstrations.

Cables Released

Democrats also criticized California Republican
Representative Darrell Issa, who is chairman of the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee, for releasing
documents on the security situation in Benghazi, saying the
action was reckless and put lives at risk. Issa on Oct. 19
released unclassified cables from the U.S. embassy in Libya that
included names of some individuals.

“And what Darrell Issa did by releasing names in that
entire document of individuals who are working with America, put
people at risk in Libya, and people around the world will now
know that you’re at risk if you cooperate with the United
States,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former White House
chief of staff, said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “That
office, that chairmanship of that committee comes with
responsibility. And you can not act reckless with it.”

Bill Richardson, who was U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations under Democratic President Bill Clinton, said on CNN’s
“State of the Union” that Republican presidential nominee Mitt
Romney was “taking political potshots” at Obama while U.S.
diplomats were still under assault. “I think that’s wrong,” he
said.

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on CNN
that “it is offensive for the president of the United States to
pretend that being asked a serious question about a serious
topic in a presidential campaign is some personality game.”